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Riviera

Concept art by Nathan Anderson

Peter Riviera is a thief and sadist who can project holographic images using his implants.

In the book, physical small "display units" are mentioned that receive and project Rivieras thoughts. He can place them somewhere and create traps for his victims.

Possibly, he has additional projectors in his eyes. This is not explained in the book in detail, but it would make sense if Gibson thought of it this way. Riviera can hardly place and configure external display units each time he spontaneously scares someone.

Description[]

He has a slender body, blond hair, soft voice, and speaks fluent English without any accent. His face has beautiful features, as they were probably the work of Chiba surgery; he is 30 years old but without any features showing a specific age. He has a high and smooth forehead, calm and distant gray eyes, a nose (too nice to be natural) seemed to have been broken and clumsily reset. His jaw is delicate and his teeth, small, even and very white. He seems polite and quick to smile.

According to the profile that studied Armitage and Molly Millions, he is a certified psychopath; is personality is a very rare type, estimated 1 in 2 millions, like a chameleon suit; which, according to Molly "says something good about human nature".

He is a "compulsive Judas", a disorder that requires him to betray the people who love him in order to get off sexually. He is armed with a Nambu.

He is a drug addict, hooked on a mix of cocaine and meperidine, once known as Demerol. Whenever he uses drugs he combines it with a holographic mini-show to make it "more fun". It seems that he can't operate without his special taste of drugs, so Molly supplied some drugs from his dealer before taking him out of Istanbul.

Augmentations[]

In Chiba City he got subliminal holographic implants; although these are easy to get, he uses them in a talented effective way. He has no left lung and his right one is boosted. The Finn had also seen his schematics and believes that he could narrow it to a pulse and fry a retina over easy.

He has a membrane over the vein so that he doesn't have to worry about the condition of the needle. The needle hurts him but he enjoys it, being "part of it", considering "pedestrians" those who use dermadisks.

Riviera's monster[]

When attacked by Terzi and Molly, Riviera created an illusion that he fell, and his jacket heaved and burst; in a bloody explosion, out of his ruined body, came a pair of gray-pink, long, rope-tendoned arms, and a 2-meters tall monster pull itself up. Its skin was pinkish and wet like intestines. Its head was stuck on the body without a neck having no eyes; a conical mouth lined with hairs or bristles, glittering like black chrome moved as if scanning for them.

Bio[]

Riviera hails from the rubble rings around the radioactive core of old Bonn. He is legally stateless and traveled under a forged Dutch passport.

Istanbul[]

He ended up in Istanbul. During the 3 years he was there if he found a woman he really wanted, "he'd make sure she turned political" and sold them to the turkish secret police, in total 18 women aged 20-25. Molly speculated that torturer Terzibashjian allowed him to watch the interrogations. He is living in Fener in Istanbul, at Kuchuk Gulhane Djaddesi 14. He performs at the Yenishehir Palas Oteli. Each night he rides the tunnel to the Spice Bazaar, to purchase his mixture from Ali. Armitage and Molly were after him for Armitage's operation.

Whenever some cyclist passed near him, he enjoyed projecting holographic scorpions near the brake lever, causing them to fall. Terzibashjian (who was hired by Armitage to stalk on him) noted that within a day he made a dozen of them fall.

One night, as he exited Ali's door, a light emitted from Molly spotted him. He fell down and created the illusion of a monster coming out of his body, and approaching his pursuers, buying himself some time to run away. However Terzibashjian rushed onto him, at the same time that Molly shot at him with a toxin-flechette, wounding Terzi. When the lights came again, he was laying down at Terzi's feet. The Finn with the help of Mahmut removed him from the alley and scanned his gear while he was still unconscious. That night Molly took his stuff from his apartment and supplied with drugs from Ali as "some special insurance" on him.

After being abducted, subjected to the Finn's examination, and pressured by Armitage into joining their team, he seemed to be quite easy and smiling. Shortly before leaving for Yesilkoy airport, he was with the others in Istanbul Hilton, browsing bogus Byzantine fragments in a gift-shop. As 3 Japanese tourists bustled in Armitage came quickly beside him who turned and smiled.

From the Yesilkoy airport they took the THY liner to Paris, sitting in First Class, with Armitage on the aisle. Riviera made appear a giant sperm in Case's glass of bourbon. Molly slapped and threatened him, and Armitage ordered him to stop. As a reaction he made appear a rose of black leather petals and a black stem thorned with bright chrome. He smiled to Case and fell asleep.

Zion[]

After a ride with a JAL shuttle and docking to the terminal, instead of Freeside they took a taxi and docked with the Zion cluster. Riviera followed Armitage to a hatch where Case and Molly had assembled a maze of sheets, uncertain in the partial gravity. Case almost fought with him for not helping them, and Riviera answered he was "in the head" while a small trout swam out his mouth trailing bubbles to Case's cheek. Riviera liked that Case laughed and said that he couldn't help as he isn't good with his hands, and doubled his arms and hands. Case called him a harmless clown and Molly stepped between them.

A few hours after the arrival Armitage wanted him out of the yellow maze for a meal, and Case found him stoned, curled like a cat naked on a thin pad of temperfoam; a revolving halo of small white geometric forms, over his head.

While sitting on his foam pad with Case, he took his drugs giving a little illusion show; the elastic surgical tube around his arm became a finger-thick jewel-scaled snake banded black and scarlet, with eyes of ruby neon. The syringe became a pale waxy scorpion with brownish claws that walked from his palm to his arm; it halted and vibrated at his inner elbow, its sting quivered and sank into a bulging vein. He said that he always make it a little show an enjoys the pain caused by the membrane. Case said that he had to give it up.

Later Armitage briefed them on their mission, showing a hologram of the Freeside. Showing them Villa Straylight, Riviera asked what is inside, creating 4 tiny figures near the tip of Armitage's finger, which he slapped like gnats. Armitage replied that his mission is to arrange an invitation to go there and help Molly get in; asking for more details, he was told by Armitage to learn the streets of the station. Riviera rolled his eyes and made a dozen bright pustules on Armitage's face, causing Molly to laugh. Armitage looked them with cold empty eyes and Riviera apologized.

Freeside[]

Armitage and Riviera hired a JAL taxi to Freeside. They met Case and Molly having breakfast at the roof garden of the Intercontinental. In a loose gray seersucker outfit he perversely suggested prison. Sweetly he asked his "medicine" from Molly; she was about to refuse, when Riviera pointed to Armitage with his eyes, and Armitage made her give it to him, a flat, foil-wrapped packet that Riviera caught in midair. Smiling he cupped it in his hand and made small glittering insects to swarm out of it. As he said, he had a mission that afternoon and needed to be at his best.

Riviera got a job at the Vingtième Siècle as a performer-illusionist. He performed a dreaming real show "The Doll", which he dedicated to 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool who watched from the balcony, and Molly, who was enraged for using her face. Later 3Jane invited him to Villa Straylight.

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